It's here!

Well, it's official. The book is out there in the universe. Nearly 2 years after starting the whole process and almost a whole year since we submitted the final manuscript, the book is in readers' hands. Can I tell you? This is the most exciting part for me. We're getting emails, tweets, and notes from readers and people are so kind.

Thank-you for reading and supporting me as we explore quilting and creating together. Now that the book is available I'm looking forward to new opportunities to get us all going in playing with our fabric.

There were a few folks with the correct guess for the book date. But we're still waiting for baby... There was a baby this week, but my sister's, not mine. I guess I better finish that quilt!

One more thing. I'll be offering signed copies of the book for sale in my shop. As soon as those copies arrive on my doorstep I will list them. And I'll let you know when that happens. And stay tuned, I've got some fun things going on in the next couple of weeks, baby not included!

Cosmic Burst Play Part 2

A little more play. This round includes the options that come from using only one type of block.

Seven

Eight

Nine

Now, just to get a top or two together. Hubby has expressed his preference. I have mine. Now, let's see what I can do.

What do you guys think? Part 1 of the options here.

Cosmic Burst Play Part 1

So, let's play, shall we?

This first round of layout options comes from an even amount of the two different types of blocks. Opposite corners make for a dearth of layout options.

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

All the blocks are made from Cosmic Burst by Mark Cesarik and some friends playing along. See the first two posts in the series here and here.

Cosmic Burst Blocks

This week I'm playing with the charm pack of Cosmic Burst by Mark Cesarik.

Inspired by my improv curves on the bee blocks, I decided to make some Drunkard's Path inspired blocks.

I started with a rectangle of plain white (Kona White) cut to roughly 13'' by 7''. My hope was to trim the blocks down to 12.5'' by 6.5'' when I was done. I placed the charm over one corner and freehand cut a quarter circle through both the charm and the white. Remove the white fabric and sew the charm into the gap. Press towards the white and trim the block to size.

It all went surprisingly quickly. And easily. And it was the exact kind of block I wanted to make.

I alternated which corners I sewed the charm into. Just for fun.

When I started I had no clue what kind of final design I would end up doing. After I'd made about half the blocks I did some sketching. I learned two things:

1. For most of the designs I was sketching I could have put all the charms in the same corner. Oh well.

2. To make anything but a baby quilt I needed to make more blocks.

That meant I went shopping in my stash. Turns out I don't have a lot of the bright florals that we've been seeing for years. I could think of tonnes of fabrics I've seen that would work really well with Cosmic Burst, like anything from Jennifer Paganelli, Amy Butler, Tula Pink, and Kaffe Fassett. The colours are quite rich so they wanted to play well with Lizzy House and Kate Spain. But it seems I haven't stashed much of those fabrics! Hmm...

But I did have a charm pack of Lizzy House's Outfoxed which has some deep colours and then dug through all my fabrics for perhaps some unconventional matches. But once I cut charms I could see that Cosmic Burst was going to play well with lots of different friends.

Oh, and once I got all the blocks done my Hubby asked me to make a baby quilt for a friend of his and could I please use these blocks. So it looks like there will be two baby quilts out of this week of play, instead of the lap quilt I'd planned.

Tomorrow I'll show you some of the layout options for these blocks.

(Cosmic Burst ships in April)